dittybopper:And it's always good to see a living person get recognized with a Medal of Honor.

We are much better at saving the critically injured nowadays. Combat trauma surgeries (and as a result civilian trauma hospitals) will benefit from our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan forever. No that's not justification for the losses these wars have inflicted, but that's how war works.

fireclown:Is that a full prosthetic eye, or an elaborate contact lens? Would one have multiple prosthetic eyes for different occasions, as athletes have different prosthetic limbs?

/really curious, not being a dick.

Yeah, quite a few people have several fake eyes. I know a Marine who lost an eye in Iraq, who has his "regular eye" that matches his real one, but he also has his "fun eyes" that he wears when he feels like it. One looks like a cat eye, with a vertical slit, and another has a little Eagle, Globe, and Anchor for when he does military stuff. I'll have to ask him about the Purple Heart one, that looks like it would be cool.

OK serious question, what sort of lame grenade do you survive with (relativity) minor injures from, I could be wrong but even fragmentation grenades contain more than 100g of explosive, was it some sort of dud?

And now he has got a bad ass James Bond villain look going on. Looks surprising good for what happened to him. Glad to see they took the time to do some great reconstructive surgery. Don't know if I would have the big brass ones to do something like this to save a friend, hope I would.

fireclown:Is that a full prosthetic eye, or an elaborate contact lens? Would one have multiple prosthetic eyes for different occasions, as athletes have different prosthetic limbs?

No, that's the mount where the prosthetic eye will attach. I know someone who lost an eye to cancer and has the same thing. The mount gets attached to muscles so it can move naturally. When it fully heals, a prosthetic eyeball (more like a hemisphere, not a full ball) attaches to the mount. That way instead of getting the immobile glass eye you saw with Peter Falk and Sammy Davis Jr., his fake eye will move like a real one.

It can take a long time to heal fully though. So the guy I know is going to be wearing an eyepatch for a long time before he can wear the glass eye part. IIRC, the fake eyeball will be removable so everything can be cleaned.

albatros183:OK serious question, what sort of lame grenade do you survive with (relativity) minor injures from, I could be wrong but even fragmentation grenades contain more than 100g of explosive, was it some sort of dud?

they aren't minor injuries. It's a miracle they were able to save his arm.

USCLaw2010:albatros183: OK serious question, what sort of lame grenade do you survive with (relativity) minor injures from, I could be wrong but even fragmentation grenades contain more than 100g of explosive, was it some sort of dud?

they aren't minor injuries. It's a miracle they were able to save his arm.

What I mean is a contact explosion from that much explosive would generally not just maim you but blow large chunks of you body somewhere not connected to your body

albatros183:OK serious question, what sort of lame grenade do you survive with (relativity) minor injures from, I could be wrong but even fragmentation grenades contain more than 100g of explosive, was it some sort of dud?

You survive with sheer dumb luck. It most likely got mostly absorbed by body armor, but a big part of it was probably just dumb luck. You know, most people who fall out of airplanes die. A very tiny percentage land just right, or hit just the right updraft, whatever, they survive. This guy pretty much had everything go right (as much as having a grenade blow up under you can "go right"), and managed to survive. He's that tiny lucky outlier. Someone manages to win those multi-hundred million Powerballs. This guy used up his luck on something else.

albatros183:OK serious question, what sort of lame grenade do you survive with (relativity) minor injures from, I could be wrong but even fragmentation grenades contain more than 100g of explosive, was it some sort of dud?

Could be a fragmentation vest, combined with just the unique characteristics (and maybe a grenade weakened a bit by storage conditions*) made it survivable.

albatros183:OK serious question, what sort of lame grenade do you survive with (relativity) minor injures from, I could be wrong but even fragmentation grenades contain more than 100g of explosive, was it some sort of dud?

A grenade does pack quite a punch. But the energy isn't focused like a bullet. His vest and helmet are probably why he's here today. Looks like a fair bit of shrapnel made it through the gap between the two, though.

Lets talk frankly about internal cleanliness:albatros183: OK serious question, what sort of lame grenade do you survive with (relativity) minor injures from, I could be wrong but even fragmentation grenades contain more than 100g of explosive, was it some sort of dud?

A grenade does pack quite a punch. But the energy isn't focused like a bullet. His vest and helmet are probably why he's here today. Looks like a fair bit of shrapnel made it through the gap between the two, though.

Croucher was recommended for the award for throwing himself on a Taliban tripwire grenade to save his comrades. He was part of a reconnaissance mission near Sangin in Helmand Province in Afghanistan on 9 February 2008. Moving through a compound at night he felt a trip-wire against his leg and saw that he had activated a grenade. He threw himself to the ground, and used his rucksack to pin the grenade to the floor, and tucked his legs up to his body. He was thrown some distance by the explosion, but due to the protection offered by his rucksack and body-armour, suffered only a nose-bleed, perforated ear drums and some disorientation. The pack was ripped from his back by the explosion, and his body armour and helmet were pitted by grenade fragments.

dittybopper:albatros183: OK serious question, what sort of lame grenade do you survive with (relativity) minor injures from, I could be wrong but even fragmentation grenades contain more than 100g of explosive, was it some sort of dud?

Could be a fragmentation vest, combined with just the unique characteristics (and maybe a grenade weakened a bit by storage conditions*) made it survivable.

And he's not the only person to have survived "falling on a grenade":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_on_a_grenade

Err.. only one of those people survived and he had a ruck sac )presumably filled with stuff) in between him and the grenade.

TFA is short on details and doesn't actually say he dived on the grenade, makes more sense in the tackle your buddy and are on top for a nearby explosion than jump on top of.